12 Comments
Nov 12, 2020Liked by Erica Manfred

I’m only part way through (Beth Harmon just lost her first game, to the boy wonder asshole). I know just enough chess that it’s a major reason I'm interested in the series. I see your point, Erica, about the almost complete lack of the kind of sexist sniping a woman of that time would have received. I also can’t help seeing her relationship with her adoptive mother as exploitative - Beth is clearly a meal ticket, whose obsession is useful and whose drug addiction is enabled. For me, that’s a very dark aspect, although subtle.

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Wishing thinking kills people every single day. I think that is my main takeaway since I have not watched the flick and probably won't. Painting the past with a rosy glow (quoting you) is extremely dangerous because it prevents forward progress and the evolution of our species.

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Hey!

The comments window was omitted on the “couch” piece! We both laughed realizing out new LazyBoys have indeed captured our butts too. You have become a crazy cat lady my dear. And do not worry about testing all those resting spots as you are getting exercise my dear…

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I couldn't finish watching that movie. I'm stupid enough to not realize it had a lot of fake stuff mixed in with all that period clothing and decor. Too uppity.

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I agree --except on citing maybe 50 studies on Wikipedia as "compelling evidence" of sex differences in cognition. When you get into truly robust data, that compiles evidence from MILLIONS of study participants instead of maybe a few thousand, the differences are almost nonexistent. The research strongly suggests that perceived or actual differences in cognitive performance between males and females are most likely the result of social and cultural factors. More recent findings suggest that not only are the differences considered to be very small, on all tasks except mental rotation, but they are of only minor practical significance.

https://www.apa.org/action/resources/research-in-action/share

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/251566000_Gender_differences_in_cognition_A_minefield_of_research_issues

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6013760/

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I think you have a good argument, but given its history, I kind of sense what happened to the story. Walter Tevis wrote it back in ‘83, and then died in ‘84. Attempts were made along the way to bring it to the screen, but something interfered..like the death of Heath Ledger. Ellen Page would have played Beth, a more serious actress but now too old. So now, 37 years later, Netflix picks it up and Scott Frank writes the screenplay. They cast alumni from Love, Actually and Harry Potter. That speaks volumes. Scott is a good screenwriter; I thought his Godless was exceptionally good. But the emphasis changed. Tevis, in a radio interview, said he focused on the chess more than the characters. He also commented that Beth was learning about chess and sex at the same time, and having more success with chess. That element was likely about himself, so Beth's gender was really secondary. Ledger and Page's version would probably have better suited you and me. But this YA generation is very different. They just assume those struggles you reference are so far in the past. They are more interested in the fashion element (ref: the piece in Elle about the 'vintage' outfits).

Erica, we aren't the movie demographic they aim to attract, it's young adults. Couple that with the reality that the book and every version of the screenplay was written by a man. The result you deplore was inevitable. My biggest issue was the way drug addiction was depicted; the scene where Beth tries to steal the jar of tranquilizers and ends up on the floor was like a scene from one of those 50’s hygiene films. Ludicrous.

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What about Judit Polgár? She broke Bobby Fischer's record. Then there's Yifan Hou but she doesn't rank as high worldwide. What I read is not that the issue is with the ability of women, but with the lack of support and players for women to compete against. The sport is now growing though among young women I read here: https://theconversation.com/why-theres-a-separate-world-chess-championship-for-women-129293. I always think that encouraging girls is the way to go. I'm sure many 20 years ago would have said that encouraging a girl to think she could become Vice President was also BS. But look where we are today.

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